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The really stupid part is that US military spending is so disproportionate you could do both. A 25% cut in the US military would leave around 165bn for infrast

The really stupid part is that US military spending is so disproportionate you could do both. A 25% cut in the US military would leave around 165bn for infrastructure and they'd still be spending more than the next 4 countries.

WillPostForFood 9y ago
$165 billion is about 4% of federal spending, so if people think it is so important they could cut everything except defense and easily come up with the money.
- muhfuhkuh 9y ago
  But if we cut military, they'd then be much more fiscally responsible and not have to admit that they'd "lost" trillions of dollars that they can't account for every, oh, decade or so. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-accounting-errors/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-account...
  - adventured 9y ago
    They did not in fact admit they "lost" trillions. It's a fair criticism of their mediocre accounting, however they did not lose trillions of dollars, nor are trillions of dollars unaccounted for. That part isn't even actually being disputed by that ignorant CNN article. Trillions of dollars have not been properly audited, which is not the same as that entire sum simply being magically missing. That article is rehashing the same bogus premise that has been thrown around for decades. Here's how it works: https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-8-5-trillion-missing-from-the-pentagon.t3173/ https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-8-5-trillion-missing-from-... https://davidlandy.net/no-the-pentagon-didnt-lose-8-5-trillion/ https://davidlandy.net/no-the-pentagon-didnt-lose-8-5-trilli... Basically: within $N trillion in spending, there is a combination of non-audits and accounting irregularities, so therefore CNN throws up a click-bait article claiming the entire amount of spending is unaccounted for. Pretty idiotic when you consider the sums being claimed vs the known expenditures in question. The premise is: every dollar that wasn't audited was stolen; logically, even if one were to assume theft (etc) happened, it's likely to be a dramatically smaller sum of the whole.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  NASA is about 0.5% of federal spending. The total education spend is 3%. So you could double spending on education and nasa and still pocket savings... By cutting the US military by 25%. Just an example.
adventured 9y ago
The US has an economy larger than the next four largest military countries combined. An economy that is hyper dependent on the global economy functioning well and trade flowing unimpeded. I happen to agree with slashing the US military, however your premise is incorrect. It's also worth noting that China aggressively lies about their military spending - under counting - and has been doing that for decades. The US is also now spending less than Russia per dollar of GDP. Further, the $165 billion wouldn't accomplish anything in terms of infrastructure, or healthcare, or anything else. For example, take a look at the estimate that California Democrats recently ended up with for their single-payer system (it's so expensive to do in the US, it'd instantly bankrupt California; not even a small, somewhat well run state like Vermont can pull it off). You can't even fix California's infrastructure problems for $165 billion per year. Right now, with the US budget what it is, you'd need more like a $400 billion cut to the military to even scratch the surface (we have nukes, it'd realistically be feasible, but we'd have to dramatically disengage from dealing with Russia in Europe and China in Asia, requiring those regions to significantly lift their military spending).
- Retric 9y ago
  This is not 165 billion to fix infrastructure, this is 165B to fix mass transit and that's plenty when you consider the leverage loans can provide it's closer to 500B per year. Second US gets almost nothing per dollar from it's military spending due to inefficiencies. Slashing the budget for a few years is a critical step to separate the useful from the useless spenind. And realistically a 70% cut followed by a slow ramp up would eliminate vast amounts of redundant waste, and reduce many long term obligations. But, that waste is making people rich and 'bringing home the bacon' making such cuts untenable.
  - adventured 9y ago
    The $500 billion you're quoting for mass transit, would build high speed rail for California, Texas, and maybe a few states on the East Coast. That's it. Might cover 15% of the US population. > Second US gets almost nothing per dollar from it's military spending due to inefficiencies Most US military spending is on human soldiers, not on weapons programs. The waste you're referring to is a few tens of billions of dollars per year. It's not hundreds of billions. Your premise of somehow saving a lot of money by reducing waste, doesn't pan out under any scrutiny accordingly. Unless your plan is to slash hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their associated costs (even if we close half our foreign bases, which would save tens of billions of dollars, we would then need to significantly increase the spending on our domestic base capabilities to handle those soldiers; or we have to dramatically slash our soldier numbers).
gozur88 9y ago
Expenditures are a terrible way to measure military strength. The US military can't pay Chinese wages.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  ok, so how about the number of bases in other counties and the current number of military operations.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    Are we going to use the list going around which assumes a group of five guys is a military base? If so, there are a lot of other countries with military bases in the US.
- kashkhan 9y ago
  exactly how much is wages of the total spend?
  - gozur88 9y ago
    I would think nearly everything, either uniform military or contractor employee. What else is there?
    - kashkhan 9y ago
      $139B out of $583B is salaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_request_for_FY2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
      - gozur88 9y ago
        But that's sort of irrelevant, isn't it? When the USAF buys an F-35, the cost of the F-35 is almost entirely domestic US labor, even though on the military budget it counts as equipment.

WillPostForFood 9y ago

$165 billion is about 4% of federal spending, so if people think it is so important they could cut everything except defense and easily come up with the money.

muhfuhkuh 9y ago
But if we cut military, they'd then be much more fiscally responsible and not have to admit that they'd "lost" trillions of dollars that they can't account for every, oh, decade or so. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-accounting-errors/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-account...
- adventured 9y ago
  They did not in fact admit they "lost" trillions. It's a fair criticism of their mediocre accounting, however they did not lose trillions of dollars, nor are trillions of dollars unaccounted for. That part isn't even actually being disputed by that ignorant CNN article. Trillions of dollars have not been properly audited, which is not the same as that entire sum simply being magically missing. That article is rehashing the same bogus premise that has been thrown around for decades. Here's how it works: https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-8-5-trillion-missing-from-the-pentagon.t3173/ https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-8-5-trillion-missing-from-... https://davidlandy.net/no-the-pentagon-didnt-lose-8-5-trillion/ https://davidlandy.net/no-the-pentagon-didnt-lose-8-5-trilli... Basically: within $N trillion in spending, there is a combination of non-audits and accounting irregularities, so therefore CNN throws up a click-bait article claiming the entire amount of spending is unaccounted for. Pretty idiotic when you consider the sums being claimed vs the known expenditures in question. The premise is: every dollar that wasn't audited was stolen; logically, even if one were to assume theft (etc) happened, it's likely to be a dramatically smaller sum of the whole.
noir_lord 9y ago
NASA is about 0.5% of federal spending. The total education spend is 3%. So you could double spending on education and nasa and still pocket savings... By cutting the US military by 25%. Just an example.

adventured 9y ago

The US has an economy larger than the next four largest military countries combined. An economy that is hyper dependent on the global economy functioning well and trade flowing unimpeded. I happen to agree with slashing the US military, however your premise is incorrect. It's also worth noting that China aggressively lies about their military spending - under counting - and has been doing that for decades. The US is also now spending less than Russia per dollar of GDP. Further, the $165 billion wouldn't accomplish anything in terms of infrastructure, or healthcare, or anything else. For example, take a look at the estimate that California Democrats recently ended up with for their single-payer system (it's so expensive to do in the US, it'd instantly bankrupt California; not even a small, somewhat well run state like Vermont can pull it off). You can't even fix California's infrastructure problems for $165 billion per year. Right now, with the US budget what it is, you'd need more like a $400 billion cut to the military to even scratch the surface (we have nukes, it'd realistically be feasible, but we'd have to dramatically disengage from dealing with Russia in Europe and China in Asia, requiring those regions to significantly lift their military spending).

Retric 9y ago
This is not 165 billion to fix infrastructure, this is 165B to fix mass transit and that's plenty when you consider the leverage loans can provide it's closer to 500B per year. Second US gets almost nothing per dollar from it's military spending due to inefficiencies. Slashing the budget for a few years is a critical step to separate the useful from the useless spenind. And realistically a 70% cut followed by a slow ramp up would eliminate vast amounts of redundant waste, and reduce many long term obligations. But, that waste is making people rich and 'bringing home the bacon' making such cuts untenable.
- adventured 9y ago
  The $500 billion you're quoting for mass transit, would build high speed rail for California, Texas, and maybe a few states on the East Coast. That's it. Might cover 15% of the US population. > Second US gets almost nothing per dollar from it's military spending due to inefficiencies Most US military spending is on human soldiers, not on weapons programs. The waste you're referring to is a few tens of billions of dollars per year. It's not hundreds of billions. Your premise of somehow saving a lot of money by reducing waste, doesn't pan out under any scrutiny accordingly. Unless your plan is to slash hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their associated costs (even if we close half our foreign bases, which would save tens of billions of dollars, we would then need to significantly increase the spending on our domestic base capabilities to handle those soldiers; or we have to dramatically slash our soldier numbers).

gozur88 9y ago

Expenditures are a terrible way to measure military strength. The US military can't pay Chinese wages.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
ok, so how about the number of bases in other counties and the current number of military operations.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Are we going to use the list going around which assumes a group of five guys is a military base? If so, there are a lot of other countries with military bases in the US.
kashkhan 9y ago
exactly how much is wages of the total spend?
- gozur88 9y ago
  I would think nearly everything, either uniform military or contractor employee. What else is there?
  - kashkhan 9y ago
    $139B out of $583B is salaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_request_for_FY2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
    - gozur88 9y ago
      But that's sort of irrelevant, isn't it? When the USAF buys an F-35, the cost of the F-35 is almost entirely domestic US labor, even though on the military budget it counts as equipment.